


Raiders of the Damned

by DefiantCandle17



Category: Original Work
Genre: Beowulf Inspired, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Christian Mythology, F/M, Idea that I've had in my head for a while, Inspired by Beowulf (2007), Meant to be a five thousand word story but ended up longer, Mythology References, Original Fiction, References to Norse Religion & Lore, References to Paradise Lost, Vikings versus Demons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22454863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefiantCandle17/pseuds/DefiantCandle17
Summary: When honourable Viking Chieftain Hjallmar Ulfsson raids a Christian populated island to plunder it for riches, he doesn't expect much other than be on and off the island in the same day, so that he can return home to his family and bolster his clan's fortune with riches to trade. But when they find the island decimated from what appears to be a devastating raid and a lone surviving monk, Hjallmar realises that something is not quite right.Then the night comes, and with it an army of godless horrors that prove too dangerous for even his hardened warriors to face. Hjallmar's plans for a quick raid soon turn to survival, as they work to leave the island as soon as possible and discover the root cause of the demonic presence on the Christian Island...An original short story fic written by Defiant Candle.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!  
> This was meant to be a five thousand word fic challenge I set myself as suggested by my father. I've been feeling the stress of too many projects and work lately and have been doubting myself considerably. 
> 
> Writing is what I love and mainly I've been focussing on Game of Thrones Fanfiction with my multiverse project, pitting Dany and Jon as star-crossed lovers against the satanic demon lord R'hllor. Not a lot of people have given feedback lately, and I recently deleted my tumblr app over how much of a waste of time it was due to how selective the fanbase can be when favouring authors. I share, tag and send my work to others only to get little to no reply and despite saying write for myself, it is demoralising to not get any responses.
> 
> I'm on holiday, a much needed one and this project is something that's been on my mind for a while now. It was meant to be something bigger as something that challenges Christianity as well as Viking culture, and seeing the two cultures clash and interact has been something of interest to me lately. The idea of a group of hardened warriors encountering something out of their league remains a novel one in fantasy as well as any war genre and I hope I do a good job creating a group of characters to root for as they face the unknown in a strange land.
> 
> I should give a warning of strong violence, horror, discussion of rape and the aftermath of a mass killing that are present in this fic, hence the mature rating.  
> Do please enjoy, and I apologise for the short nature of this fic. The segments were initially meant to 500 words each before they each got longer. Perhaps like my Hades/Persephone fic I hope to return to this and make it a longer story!  
> The second and final chapter will be up in the next few days!

Mouldy bread. Hard Cheese. Salted gammy fish. 

It’s all the men have had to eat for the past nine days of rowing from their home in Iceland to the north to the island settled by the Christians. An island said to be teeming with riches, of gold forged in their holy city in the hot south, gold in their crosses, chalices and icons.

Nine days is good though. Nine was the divine number. Nine days was how long the chief of all gods, of war, poetry, mead, songs, the dead and wisdom, Odin, spent hanging from the neck from the Yggdrasil World Tree, with a spear thrust in his right side, dangling until he learnt the secrets of runes, symbols that could grant magic and blessings, that he taught to the gods and to the few mortals who were worthy. 

They were sailing for nine days. The island wasn’t far. And if they landed on the island, drug their longship up the sandy or stony shores on the ninth day, than by Odin, their raid was blessed. Fortune would be theirs and they would go home on their longship fit to burst with riches and slaves to make strong their already mighty clan

That was what fifty year old Chieftain, Hjallmar Ulfsson believed. Yes. This was a relatively easy journey compared to others he had taken before, and he was still strong, still mighty and powerful despite his years. The crows eyes about his eyes only and the wrinkles about him only added to the burly, aged look about him with his grown beard, moustache and braided silver hair. Save for both his eyes intact, Hjallmar favoured himself to be Odin come again. All old chieftains favoured themselves to be like Odin, wise, mighty and strong. Odin was said to have sacrificed one of his eyes to the well of Knowledge guarded by Mimir, his uncle in Jotunheim, a small price to pay for boundless knowledge and wisdom. 

For his younger warriors, of differing ilks and builds and strengths, there were others to idolise too. Thor for his hammer and his strength, Loki for his shrewdness and cunning, Frey for his bravery, and Heimdall for his vigilance. Each of his men to a degree or as clear as day emulated these warrior gods and half giants who dwelled in the realm of the Gods in Asgard.

And then there was Tyr. Hjallmar had always liked him. Tyr was different. In that while Thor saw to the annihilation of giants and beasts, and Odin won his battles by guile as well as strength, Tyr was known for his honour and his nobility. 

It was Tyr who Hjallmar enjoyed reading of as a child. Tyr who loved dogs and was the god of war like Odin, but also of the law and justice. Tyr who never shied from the right thing, from doing what was honourable. No matter how grave the price. No matter how severe the cost. 

Tyr was what all chieftains strove to be. It was Tyr, who Hjallmar hoped to emulate always, in his rule as Chieftain.

* * *

Hjallmar came to be chieftain when he entered his thirties. The Old Chieftain, Hjallmar Fafnirsson, who claimed himself to be the son of a dragon, brought about the end of his violent and cruel reign when he led a costly attack against the Huns to the east, seeking plunder and further glory for the clan. The campaign was costly, and too many young men died. It was this son of the dragon who believed that he was Sigurd reborn, destined to avenge his unjust death and the betrayal of his Valkyrie Brynhild, as sung of in the Volsunga Saga, by pre-emptively seeking out the Huns and raiding their lands.

Hreidmar hoped for glory. Instead all he did was kick the hornet’s nest and watch as like the infuriated swarm, the Huns, descended on his men to avenge their lands and women, hacking them down and torturing the survivors to death. 

Hjallmar admired Hreidmar. He liked his vision, his imagination, his desires and dreams. To him, Hreidmar was like a father to him, like many of the clan’s elders were, and he was honoured to be his second, his right hand man.

But this time Hreidmar had gone too far. When Hreidmar proposed to launch a daring raid at the war camp of the Hun’s most powerful general, hoping that the audacity of their attack would win them the favour of Odin and therefore grant him victory, Hjallmar had to take a stand. 

He challenged Hreidmar to single combat for the right to lead the clan. It was a brief and brutal fight. Hreidmar had gone mad for glory like a dog gone mad, and to him anyone who stood against him and his path was an enemy, regardless of their kinship to him. Bloodbrother or not, protégé or not, Hreidmar fought Hjallmar with ferocity and fierceness, with his wooden shield and sword in hand. Their fight was so fierce that sparks clashed from their swords when they met, and splinters flew from their targes as their swords bit into their shields.

In the end, for all the love he bore to his former chieftain, Hjallmar knew he could only grant the man he saw as father the death he deserved. In this battle, Hjallmar would be given the honour he deserved, for all the risk he posed of losing it in this bloody minded campaign so needlessly sought. Hjallmar’s sword struck hard through Hreidmar’s mailed vest up to the hilt.

“Valhalla…” was Hreidmar’s last whispered words, before he fell away from Hjallmar’s eyes. He blamed the smoke from the burning village nearby for his tears, as he closed Hreidmar’s eyes for ever.

Then, with his supporters behind him, Hjallmar took his men home, and became chieftain of the Bear Clan.

Since then, Hjallmar made sure to make many changes to his raiders. No women, children or the elderly would be killed in raids. No girls or any woman of any age was to be ravaged when his raiders won over the villages and lands in their conquests. And finally, no clan or enemy country was to be attacked without provocation, ever again.

* * *

  
Hjallmar had ruled the clan well and led a good life. He found a purpose for all of his men no matter what their ability. If women wanted to fight and raid too, he let them, provided they were in strength equal to a man. The slaves he took in his conquests were treated with dignity and respect, provided that they followed the rules and did not murder or steal. Those slaves, if they lived as peaceably and respectfully as the rules desired, soon lost their chains and became a member of the clan, being allowed to marry and have land of their own, and join his men on their raids. 

Hjallmar soon earned a wife, and by her he had three sons and a girl, now almost full grown and ready to marry and raid. He had raised them well, and held no regrets about his fatherhood and how well he kept them disciplined. He thought of them, thought of their faces and their voices, and held on to them as he huddled by the fires and trekked through treacherous lands, hoping only to return to them with his spoils and hold them in his arms in the warmth of their hearth and home.

But first he would have to win this next raid first.

He looked to his men. Hardened faces under their grey helms and hauberks stared ahead as they rowed their longship, with the scaled dragon on the prow, cutting across the cold sea like a blade. 

He saw Ulf, long of beard and thin of build, but the most skilled swordsman he knew. Ulf was his elder and his best friend, who often counselled him on matters of war and wisdom. He saw Bjorn, the axeman, who wore a bear skin and the top of a black bear’s head as his helm. A berserkir he was called, for the bear shirt he wore, along with his shorter brother, Magnus who wore a black wolf skin and head in a similar fashion, an ulfhednar. 

In his small party, owing to the small size of the island, Hjallmar only needed his best. He had Petur, his best archer and tracker, and Olafur his fastest scout, who he paired together to scout the lands when horses weren’t available. These were his elite men, atop his small company of polemen, axemen and sword and shield wearers. The plan for this small Christian island to the North of the land of the Scots would be a lightning raid. In and out, kill any who resist and take as much plunder as possible. 

Hallbjorn had no interest in slaves today. They had plenty at home earning their freedom and their right to start a new life in his clan. This time it would only be gold, stolen from the cold stone built buildings where the priests huddled with their men like frightened sheep while he and his wolf pack came and took what they pleased, and woe be to any who tried to stop them.

  
As if the gods has heard Hjallmar’s unspoken prayer, the clouds parted and the land they has spent days rowing for appeared before their eyes. A great cheer came up amongst the men. They would be done with this raid and home to their fires and mead within the fortnight.

But when they did arrive, and pulled up their longship so that its prow sat snugly in the stony pebbled beach, no resistance came. On the sentry posts, gating the entrance into the green pastures beyond, no shivering sentry cried out in alarm or shot his arrows at the party’s feet to force them to state their business. The braziers were long burnt out, and the flags of the outpost hung limp and still in the air. No wind seemed to blow on the island, and indeed the sail of their ship did fall slack once they had reached the island.

Hjallmar looked to Ulf, searching the old man’s weathered face for any expression that betrayed suspicion or doubt. Ulf was an experienced man who was a warlord in his time before stepping down to let Hreidmar take the mantle of Chieftain. He had tried to council the son of the dragon for caution and restraint, and ending up befriending Hjallmar in their mutual hopes to abandon the senseless campaign against the Huns. Since Hjallmar became chieftain, he kept Ulf close for his much valued wisdom and judgement.

“What say you, old friend? A trap?”

“No.” murmured the solemn old warrior. “The fires would be freshly dampened if they mean to trap us. Only way to find out is to keep going.”

“And spring the trap.” Brown haired and bearded Bjorn growled. “Perfect.”

“We’ve fought our way out of worse, brother.” Magnus spoke, rolling his shoulders, his red beard burning bright in the foggy sun. Much of the island was indeed covered by fog, making any attempts to scout ahead futile.

“Stay close. Keep an eye out for any tricks.” Hjallmar growled, and with his winged helm doffed, his black cloak ringed with wolf fur secured and his spear couched, he led his men into the misty lands.

Despite initially keeping their ears peeled, the group and men soon descended to talking amongst themselves.

“The church should be further inland. Only monks with their sceptres and clubs to stop us if we are lucky.” Black haired Olaffson suggested.

“So much for being peaceful.” Blond bearded Petur cynically replied. “They preach weird words and teachings, like to turn the other cheek and forgive a man his slights. Weaklings and fools with hearts like women.”  
“And yet they wield clubs and have holy sceptres like maces. Not all monks are just gonna lie down and let us take their treasure.”

“Probably because other clans kill the monks who surrender their treasure anyway. Only so long a peaceful people can be bloodied before they decide to bloody their foes back.”

“Quiet!” Hjallmar growled and raised his spear to halt his men. “I see the church. Ready yourselves. Bear, Wolf, do not unchain yourselves until I say so. We will not invite the disfavour of the Christian God if we can avoid it by shedding the blood of his sheep.”

“As you say, Chieftain.” Bjorn growled. 

To unchain was to let loose his berserkers. Bjorn and Magnus had been especially trained as shamans, to enter a frenzied, bloodthirsty state that was truly mighty and terrifying to behold. This berserker trance would help them stave off injury, and inflict the mightiest of blows before falling to their enemy’s blows, taking as many with them as they can. 

Hjallmar used the words unchain appropriately. It was in relation to the myth of Fenrir, the great wolf destined to kill Odin in the End Times. He was said to be chained in a cave, struggling against the bonds that hold him fast, until one day he will break free, and swallow the sun and the moon in his wrath.

Such days, Hjallmar hoped, were as such that he hoped never to see in his lifetime, but he would be ready for nonetheless.

* * *

  
When they arrived at the church, Hjallmar did not expect to see what he saw when he arrived.

There were charred marks on the grass outside of the church, which Ulf recognised as not a church or a chapel, but a monastery. Blackened holes in the grass, as if fire had burned brightly there before extinguishing, lay scattered here and there across the fields. Gravestones too bore the burn marks, with some having been shattered by what Hjallmar could only describe as a hit from a hammer. More scorch marks adorned the flanks of the huge narrow building, with side buildings fused to the outer wall, most likely the monk’s living quarters. At the sight of seeing one of the curiously stained glass windows, rumoured to have been made with the help of a small boy’s urine, Hjallmar thought also of catapults, yet the destruction caused by it was too small. What sense did this unknown raider clan have in using small catapults?

“Olaf, Petur, take ten men and go down to the village. Scout it out. Kill anyone who resists, and find out if the king’s men are hiding somewhere. We don’t want another nasty surprise like last time.”

At his bidding, a group of his men broke away and marched down to the hill to the small hamlet they spied clambering up the hill to the monastery. With that settled, they had no choice except to begin searching the grounds, to make sure there were no tombs or secret tunnels about the sight where armed men would spring up from and gut his men. Once that was established, ringing the building which took about five minutes owing to its size, it was decided that it would be safe to enter the building.

“I can’t wait to sample their wine.” Bjorn spoke aside to Magnus as they approached the sheltered entrance to the monastery.

“That watered-down piss that they pass off as the blood of their carpenter god?” Magnus scoffed. “These Christians and their traditions. Claiming to preach love and peace and yet killing off the natives and their gods to spread their religion? Don’t make me laugh. At least give me a drink that feels like the blood of a god, like Odin’s mead.”

“Ah but what is life if not trying new things, brother?” Bjorn replied. “Besides, drinking the Christian’s wine is said to make you holy, and get rid of all the bad things you’ve done in your life. Holy wine, brother, what do you think?”

“Odin’s. Mead.” Magnus replied, enunciating each word. He would not be budged on the opinion of the clan’s favourite drink of honeyed fermented wine.

“Wait…” Ulf stopped them, raising one hand while going for his dagger with the other. “Something in the window, by the door…” 

The monk burst out.

A beardless stripling, he looked ridiculous with his strange hair cut that left the top of his head bald and the rest of his brown hair in a bowl cut as he charged out, wielding indeed one of the holy sceptres ornately built with the symbols of regality, angels and of their roman god. 

He yelled something about his god giving him strength against the horned devils like a demented beast,, which made sense considering some of his men wore goat and bull horned helms, and swung his mace up to his head.

Bjorn stepped forward and struck him in the chin with the handle end of his long axe, spinning him off of his feet and sending him sprawling to the ground, and that was the end of that.

* * *

  
There was no one else in the monastery other than the brave, or more likely, suicidal monk. In fact, it was completely abandoned.

The monks living quarters appeared to have been completely ransacked, and the iron barred windows had been smashed, as if something from the outside had broken in. The beds were in a more curious state. The covers were thrown off as if pulled off, and their stuffed mattresses were ripped to tatters, as if a wild animal had clawed through them.

There was blood on some of the beds too. And the walls. And the ceilings.

The kitchens were untouched, and what little food had remained had become food for the rats. Yet there were not as many rats as an overrun kitchen should have, not even a cat around to catch them.

Rather, one frightened mouse scurried out, clambered the table to snatch a piece of bread, and then ran for its life back down the crack in the wall where it came. 

There were bloodstains in the kitchen as well. 

In fact, every room except the altar room, the central main building from which the adjoining corridors and buildings divulged from appeared to bear the signs of a vicious attack. Hallbjorn’s suspicions had been conformed. Someone had beaten them to this island, raided the church for all its worth, and then left. 

Except they didn’t take everything. The golden cross stood at the altar, and the stained windows surrounding the elevated stage where the priests broke his bread were untouched. A pale-skinned bearded man looked down at him from the window, his face gentle and serene. Below him were saints dressed in blues and greens, and above, a dove flew out from the clouds as sunshine broke through them.

Much to Bjorn’s delight, the wine had not been touched. The bread was also fresh, which was also appreciated. Disfavour of the Christ God or not, his men were hungry and needed fresh food, so Hjallmar let them eat and drink. Gathering the golden cross, the chalice and the platter into their duffel sack, as well as the money broken from the safe in which the church so robbed from its people in the name of divine charity, Hjallmar decided that they had gotten what they had come for.

But something wasn’t quite right. Where were the other monks? Why, if the previous raiders were so keen to raise this monastery to the ground, did they leave the main building with its golden artefacts?

And how did the stripling survive?

“Water. On the man’s face. I will know what came of this place.”

  
Half a skin of water was splashed on the monk’s face, washing some of the blood from the welt on his lip. Men of peace bled too easily, Hjallmar thought to himself, but he forced down his displeasure as the monk sputtered and yelled as he came to, secured in Bjorn and Magnus’s strong hands about his lean own.

“Priest.” He spoke, making sure the boy’s eyes were on him before he spoke. He spoke much of the English that the people of the land spoke, so he knew the boy would understand him.

“What happened here? Who raided this place before we did? The Volva promised this place to us. It is Odin’s will that this land be filled with gold and treasure, ripe for the taking, yet I come here after a nine day journey and find it to be raided already. Who has done this? Who?”

“Answer him quickly, or we snap your arms in two.” Magnus snarled in his ear, making the monk quail.

“Th…th…th..” The monk could only stammer out.

“Th-th-thu- can the boy talk or not?” Bjorn mocked.

“They…” the monk stuttered out. “They came…in the night…the other rooms…the chapel was the only safe place. The only place they wouldn’t…jump into…oh God…everyone…the screams…”

“Who, are they, boy?” Hjallmar felt his temper rising. He had no time for those overcome by their hysteria like women. “Who?”

“They…” The monk only shook his head, his bottom lip trembling. By Frigg, the boy looked like his youngest when he was scolded. “In the night…we should never have settled here…the village…”

At the word village his eyes shot open. Brown eyes with hints of green…also like his youngest…

“The village! Oh God, what happened to the village?! We were meant to bring the people in here, before they came, so they’d be safe but then…”

The sound of clinking metal turned their heads as one. Petur and Olaffson along with their men had come back. 

Petur’s skin was almost as pale as his beard.

“Well?” Hjallmar growled. Someone had better give him answers as to why his conquest was denied or someone was getting a hatchet to the skull.

“The village…the hamlet we passed.” Petur spoke, before shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it…

“Answer me straight, Petur,” Hjallmar stood up and turned away from the captive monk, not known for his patience and began to stride over to him, his cloak billowing out behind him. “…or Odin help me…”

“The entire village is dead.” Petur stood straight and answered quickly. “You had better come see this.”

Hjallmar was of a good mind to snap orders to stow this need to involve himself in this raid of an island already raided. But a morbid curiosity had taken a hold of him. If this was a new clan altogether,

Hjallmar would know of it, know their methods and what their usual behaviour was in their raids. A good chieftain protected his people, so this clan who had denied him Odin’s prize deserved an investigation.

“Lead on, Petur. Show me what has become of the village. Bring the monk with us as well.”

* * *

Hjallmar soon wished he hadn’t bothered to investigate.

He had seen many grim sights in his life as a warrior, more so as a Chieftain. He had dealt with wars, skirmishes, disputes, murders by cravens and madmen and animal attacks.

But never had he seen the aftermath of a raid as bloody and senseless as this.

The villages huts consisted made of thatched roofs and mud baked walls, while the more expensive ones were made of the same stone and mortar as the monastery was. There was also a town hall with a bell tower, and tall sconces where torches would be placed and lit during the night.

They had also a well, ringed by stone bricks, that had formally been covered by an iron grate. Formerly being the choice word, because something had ripped off the grate and discarded it to somewhere to the side.

Hallbjorn would have investigated more.

But the small mountain of rotting human bodies piled up in the centre of the town by the small well rendered any such need redundant.

“Sif’s golden locks…” Magnus whispered. “What kind of clan could have done this?”

“No!” the monk cried out, and sagged to his knees in the mud, wailing at the sight before him. “No…”

Hjallmar took as long a look as his eyes needed to tell him of what became of the people.

They had all looked like they had been savaged by bears. Claw marks rending their throats and bellies. Limbs broken or missing altogether. Bite marks gouging and ripping deep into their pale bodies. Dried blood in their simple peasantry clothes. 

Men. Women. Children. Babes. Hjallmar saw the bodies of livestock, and pets too. Cats and dogs strewn across the bloody pile.

His bile rose. Hardened as he was, no one could stand the sight of that for long. At the buzzing of a fly as it landed on a woman’s head, Hjallmar turned away, back to the priest.

“Search the village. Anyone or anything that is still alive, bring to me now.”

“But, Chieftain…” Olaffson quietly spoke. “This looks to be all of them, there’s no way-”

“Did my tongue slip?!” Hjalmar growled up at the scout. “Search this village for anything of value. Anyone still alive. The sooner we leave this place the better.” 

He looked up at Ulf. “Strike a torch. We burn the dead.”

“Not sure we want to have the stink of burning flesh filling this place, …” Ulf stoically replied, but he was already reaching into his pouch for a flint and retrieving the long torch with the whale oil soaked wrapping from his belt. “But I’ll see it done, Chieftain.”

“Magnus, Bjorn, help him.”

They did, and sure enough, the acrid smell of smoke and burning leather, and flesh began to fill the valley.

The monk was praying, whispering on his knees with his hands clasped in prayer, not binding the wet mud soaking his brown robes.

“In nominee Patris, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti…”

“Boy…”

“Christus autem miserere animabus illorum…”

“Boy!” His hand lunged forward and clutched the priest’s left shoulder so hard he could feel the bones underneath his lean flesh, and jerked him up to his feet. 

“Stop praying to your god and answer me!”

He leaned his face to close to his, and the monk paled before him, whimpering as more tears fell down his face.

“What happened here. Who did this?” Hjallmar growled at the priest.

“No…Not who…what…” the monk eventually replied, breathing harshly. “No human…no raider did this…”

“Then what, boy?!” Hjallmar shook him, determined to get the answer from the tight-lipped monk. “Tell me!”

“Tell me!”

As he stepped forward to pull the priest closer, he stumbled into a small puddle. Cursing, he looked down at his boot as he stepped out.

The puddle looked to be in the shape of a goat’s cloven hoof.

But since when were goat’s hooves the size of a man’s foot…

* * *

“Who did this? The Danes? The Picts? The Celts? We’re not the only people who feel it their right to raid villages after all.” Petur asked, chewing on the leg of a rabbit his keen eye had spotted.

The night had drawn in. Faster than Hjallmar would have liked. They decided to strike camp outside the monastery, lighting a fire with the abandoned piles of firewood kept dry in a shelter near where the bodies had been piled up. If trouble came, they could retreat into the monastery and fortify their position, bar the doors with the long pews the Christians sat in during their services of worship.

Some of the men had preferred to rest in the village, near the sight where the carnage had been spotted. There was no way the enemy would come back after so successful a raid, and the weather was not looking ideal.

After having it confirmed that there was indeed no one left in the village, save for a few chickens and a trembling cow, Hjallmar allowed it, and ordered a guard to watch the boat from the abandoned sentry post. They had the brazier to keep them warm, and the tower to shelter in. The remainder of the forces, including Hjallmar stayed by the monastery.

“No clan as far as we know would be so senseless as to massacre an entire village and leave their bodies piled high.” Olaffson countered. “Why do that? Its just…” 

“Barbaric.” Bjorn finished, and chewed on his stolen bread. “More of that wine, Magnus. We’ve earned it.”

He looked at the monk, lying senseless next to Magnus as he was given the bottle.

“Think we ought to share with our monk here. Looks he could use a drink too, after what he saw…”

“Let him be. He just had to go pass out while the chieftain was questioning him. Make him carry his load back up to the church, the milk-drinking…” Magnus grumbled.

“Hah! He was a bag of bones. Stop complaining like an old woman.” Bjorn snorted.

Hjallmar stared into the fire. The dead in the village would have longed become ash by now, and the rain, if and when it came, would wash away what remained. 

Senseless, what happened to those people. 

Even the most savage of the raiders had their rules of honour and engagement. The greater the foe, the greater the reward. No sense came from killing those who couldn’t defend themselves. That was his way. Not many other clans agreed with him, but they were sure to respect him. The bear clan was one of the mightiest island clans in the northern lands.

But what kind of clan or people does what they did? What justified the slaughter of so many defenceless sheep?

“All I want to know is why pile them up like a bunch of old socks?” Magnus asked.

“As a warning, maybe?” Olaffson suggested. 

“On an island as remote as this?” One of the men, Gunnar, standing and resting on his spear spoke up. “This far away, and how they were stacked, it’s like they were just chucked there like a pile of vegetables. Bread. Like spare food to come back to when one gets hungry…”

“What…” Bjorn spoke, his attention peaked, and his eyes wide and his voice wavering with uncertainty like a child’s. “Like…flesh eaters? Cannibals…?”

“Have a care how you speak of the dead.” Ulf growled up from his gruel, thumbing his small bowl with his spoon. “We are in strange lands. The last thing we want is the disfavour of their gods.”

“We’re raiders.” Magnus replied. “We steal from other places who worship other gods and no ill or ailment has befallen us. Because Odin favours us and will always favour the Bear Clan. He’s stronger than any other god in any foreign land.”

“Even in strange lands, it would do well not to invite misfortune. Even Odin feared the giants of the other lands.” Ulf replied, spooning another bite of his soup, grimacing as he swallowed it. “Even the gods fear things they cannot destroy or understand.”

“And what exists out there that Thor cannot kill or Odin to outwit?” Magnus challenged the elder back. “Nothing. Especially in these Christian lands. Sheep-fuckers and boy-loving men in skirts, that’s what this foreign god lets worship him in these soft warmer lands. If their form of Odin allows that kind of weakness, I’d love to see what their Loki offers.”

Ulf would have replied with a withering retort to curb the boastful ulfednar’s cockiness. 

But a loud scream issued from down in the village silenced everyone around the fire.

It sounded like a woman screaming. As if she was under a pain or a terror that made her scream the worst she had screamed her whole life, but it was too high-pitched to sound like anything human.

An owl perhaps, or…

The priest shot upright from his torpor.

“Oh God above…” He spoke, crossing himself from his brow to his chest, then his right shoulder to his left. “They’re here. God above…”

“…help us.”  
  


“What is here?” Hjallmar demanded, standing up as the other’s did. The monk’s eyes remained glued to the bottom of the hill, where the ransacked hamlet lay in the darkness.

“That sounded like it came from the village…” Petur replied. “Maybe we should…”

“We have men down there, don’t trouble yourself.” Magnus dismissed, annoyed at his evening meal being interrupted.

“What do you think? Barbarians?” Bjorn spoke. He was a burly mean warrior but one who held a lot of irrational fears. Superstitions and strange fears hampered what was otherwise one of his strongest and largest warriors, and all this talk of foreign lands and strange gods had done nothing else but unsettle him. Hjallmar did not need this in his warriors right now. He needed discipline. He needed focus. Their rage turned to order.

“Stand fast.” Hjallmar spoke, picking up his spear. 

Magnus groaned and threw down his leg, picking up his sword. The men armed themselves. Petur hefted his bow and stuck his arrows into the ground.

They waited.

The scream came again. Louder now.

Followed by another.

And then another.

“Maybe its just an owl.” Olaffson suggested, glancing back at the monastery and its inviting walls. Hjallmar glared at him for showing weakness, and Olaffson saw him and bowed his head in shame.

“What kind of owl sounds like that?” Bjorn asked, his fingers drumming along the haft of his long axe.

Another high pitched scream. Hjallmar tried to make out the village, stepping out of the glare of the campfire to peer into the gloom.

_Were those…shadows…moving on the roofs..._

Petur broke the silence.

“Maybe we should-”

He was interrupted by another scream. But it wasn’t the animal’s.

It was a man’s.

What followed next could only be described as pandemonium. The scream was followed by a cry of alarm from the crowd of men down at the village. 

Followed by the calls of…whatever was attacking them down there. There was the clash of steel and war cries of his men, brave, fighting men who were accustomed to being ambushed at night and weren’t about to let a group of island savages end their glorious raid on this island.

More howls. More bestial terrifying screams.

And then the men started screaming.

Something large roared and howled down there, amongst the cries…it sounded like, a wolf.

The biggest wolf Hjallmar had ever heard.

Hjallmar had heard enough. Whatever it was down there, he and his men were not prepared to face them. They could well be savage islanders intoxicated to behave like animals, using the darkness and numbers on their side. That was the only explanation he could think of.

And right now he and his men were not prepared for an enemy that had the advantage of the land and terrain over them. That could hit them so swiftly and brutally as it did the village and the monastery.

His mind made up, Hjallmar decided that the lives of his men were not worth facing this unknown enemy.

“Pack up. Light your torches then douse the fire. We make for the boat.” Hjallmar barked. “We should not have stayed here.”

“What about the men in the village?” Olaf spoke.

“They are already dead.” Ulf replied grimly. 

Hjallmar nodded at his friend. “We live to fight another day.”

A wave of protest came over the men, but they held. One cried out a friend’s name in dismay, but stayed his feet. 

Damn it all. They should not have stayed.

“Now! Do it now!”

“Wait!” the monk dared to come in front of him. “You won’t make it to the boat! They’ll kill you before you even get halfway down the hill!”

“I’d like to see them try.” Bjorn snarled. Magnus growled like the wolf he was, ready to dive into the melee at his chieftain’s word.

“You don’t understand! They’re not human! They’ll be on you like locusts and you’ll be cut down in seconds! I’ve seen them! I’ve seen how fast they are! We won’t make it!”

“We?” Magnus replied, but Hjallmar raised his hand to silence him.

The monk continued.

“We need to get into the nave of the church. The- the great hall with all the pews in! it’s the only place they won’t go in! Its consecrated- holy ground! They won’t come in no matter how many of them they are!”

“Nautskit! We make our stand here and then cut our way back to the boat! We’re not hiding like women in a building, waiting to get pillaged by bandits!” Magnus roared. He spun his sword in his wrist and turned to face the village. 

The men’s screams had stopped.

Hjallmar would not be budged.

“The longship. Now!”

Hjallmar turned away from the protesting monk-

And his heart nearly seized in his chest as a blinding white light shot out from the village.

It was a pillar of fire, bright and orange and burning like a great torch, a fiery sword cutting through the darkness and lighting up all in the seaside valley.

The pillar shot out, and then, like a burning arrow, flew into the air, and on its course it shot through the sky like a shooting star, across the cliffside, towards the beach-

And straight towards the longboat.

The fireball hit the boat and with an explosion that sounded a full second after it hit, the entire longship was destroyed in a burst of flame and splintering timber.

Hjallmar saw it all.

He saw the outlines of the men posted on the sentry towers as the explosion spread and enveloped them, devouring their shapes as they rose their arms to defend themselves.

He looked at the village, at the sacked hamlet where the fireball had come from. Where did it come from? The well…

He saw the bodies of men, the fire glinting off their armoured bodies.

He saw…

He didn’t know how to describe it. It had bent legs, a narrow gangly form with long arms. A wide head with what he could only describe as a crown or…

Horns…

It didn’t look…look like something that should exist. But it did.

And it was looking right at him.

It leapt off the roof as the remainder of the light died. Moving with other bodies surging in the shadows.

“Our boat…our boat…our way off this forsaken land…” Olaffson spoke.

“They’re coming…” the monk began to back away slowly and clutched at what Hjallmar saw was a rosary beaded necklace, with a symbol of the crucified god on it. “They’re coming!”

And sure enough. Hjallmar heard them. Gibbering and hooting and squealing and roaring. A horde, a plague, was the only way to describe them. The sounds they made.

Hjallmar’s plan of escape ruined, the only logical step now was to hide. The night horde were getting closer by the second, a testament to their unearthly speed as they raced up the hill towards them.

“Come on! Come on, you pig fuckers!” Magnus roared, brandishing his sword and shield at the ready.

Hjallmar was not ready for his men to die today.

He turned to the monk as he began to back away, who froze as his steely blue eyes met his. 

"If you are lying to me, I will fight my way through to your paradise and wring your damn neck.”

He turned to his men and roared.

“Into the monastery! Now!”

  
And with that they all piled into the monastery, as the footsteps of the creatures began to be heard.

They closed the door and were boarding it with the second pew when something, them, slammed into the door, knocking them off their feet.

The rest was a mad scramble as his men, numbering at twenty five from what was once thirty five, hurried to re-secure the door.

The monk was being helpful as ever and kneeling before the altar table, praying up at the stained mirror of his self-sacrificing god. His god like Odin was one of sacrifice, whom his people worshipped.

Both had a spear thrust into their side…

“Odin, if you can hear me, let me and my men live tonight.” Hjallmar growled under his breath as he moved with the others and the pews and tables to secure the other doors, hearing the glass shatter as the things crashed into the living quarters and into the kitchen.

“Let me and my men live…"

  
"…So I can kill each and every last one of these godless scum.”  



	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following last night's attack, Hjallmar and his men have no choice but to follow the monk as they try to find their way off the cursed island...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack!  
> Please enjoy the second and final chapter to Raiders of the Damned. Please let me know what you think and whether or not I should consider lengthening this to a longer story!  
> And sorry for failing the short 1,000 word story challenge! I guess some parts needed longer writing than others!  
> Please enjoy!  
> A warning for sexual reference, crude humour, strong bloody violence, threat and a dark bittersweet ending.

“Hafnor, Svensson, Floki…so many of our men…dead.”

If Bjorn had to pick a time to be sentimental, it had to be now. In the morning. After they attacked.

The monk was right. The creatures did not attack the central nave of the monastery, and it was a large enough hall to house the remainder of his men. 

But that did not stop the creatures from scrambling over each other to get into the living quarters, the outer corridors and the kitchens. For all that the monk said about the central hall being ‘consecrated’, it did not stop the creatures from trying to reach the chamber by other means. Some tried to reach in with their hands through the windows, only for them to sizzle and burn as they flailed around their jagged, bony arms, stinking of sulphur and burning ash, like the volcanic lands of Surtr in the mother land.

The others tried to force their way in through the barred doors, with no success, but a dogged persistence that lasted nearly all of the night, smashing and screaming against the fortifications like madmen possessed. Even Bjorn and Magnus would be hard-pressed to channel the sheer animalistic rage that the creatures flung at the doors.

When day came, and the sun shone through the shattered windows, the men had awoken to find that they had slept half the day away. They were exhausted, having fallen asleep against their own blockades, while the monk had fallen asleep on his front, with his arms out-stretched copying his nailed woodworker god. Hjallmar felt himself simmer with rage. If that nailed god was so powerful, perhaps he would have ripped himself off the cross and come down to help them last night, to deliver them from their bondage, as the monk so fervently prayed.

His god was said to have angels, powerful winged beings with swords and words that could destroy whole armies. Pah! Odin had Valkyries. Chosen shieldmaidens of the slain, warriors who aided the great heroes of old in the sagas sung by the Skalds and Bards around the fires of the Great Hall of his home.

But no angel or Valkyrie came to their assistance tonight. Even Bjorn and Magnus had Valkyrie brides promised to them, and those did not come to their aid. They were on their own in this gods-forsaken land. And they had to leave. As soon as possible.

Their long ship had been destroyed, which meant that unless there was another port of harbour on this rock, they were well and truly fucked. Hjallmar would have answers, for the lives of his men and their families waiting for them at home. He would get them home, by Odin, or throw himself into the cold arms of Hela for his dishonour as a chieftain.

Striding over to the monk, he grasped him by his narrow shoulders and yanked him up to his feet. His beardless narrow chinned face was caked in dust and strands of hay.

“On your feet, monk!” He pulled him upright and grasped him hard by the shoulders. 

“Now…you will tell me if there is a way off of this island, and you will tell me how this island came to be a festering hide for a brood of night creatures that killed my men and destroyed my boat!”

“I’ll…I’ll tell you!” The monk nodded, and Hjallmar prayed for the monk’s sake that he would be more forthcoming with his answers than before. Otherwise, there would be no monks left on the island before the night creatures came back to finish the job.

* * *

  
“My name is Jamie. I came from the south in Scotland to become a monk and live a monastic life. I am young, but I have trained and felt God’s calling to live a life of abstinence and service to the people of Kyle Crannog. That’s the name of this island.”

“Kyle Crannog had been settled by the Holy Roman Empire. The knights of the holy empire conquered this land because the Pope deemed it to be a holy land. A place of miracles.”

“The forces of the Pope encountered a group of Celts, native settlers that had deemed this land their’s before the Pope. So the Church ordered that the Celts either convert or be put to the sword. The Celts…chose to fight back.”

“The Celts resisted and attacked without mercy. They used the lands to their advantage. But God was said to be on the side of the knights and his Holiness’s forces, and they beat back the Celts until only a handful remained. They…they burned every village they could find and killed every man woman and child. They were heretics. Pagans. It was God’s will that they die.”

“That was when the Celts began to grow desperate. They started turning to the Druids, seeking rituals to summon their gods. They used human sacrifices and dark rituals. Cutting off heads and drinking blood to embody their gods of war and death. But it wasn’t enough.”

“The last Celtic settlement that was destroyed, the knights saw the druids about to sacrifice a eighteen year old girl, to someone they called the Horned God. But the priest who saw the sight, once the knights killed the druids. He claimed it wasn’t a pagan ritual, but a pact with the devil. A satanic ritual.”

“What about the girl?” Petur asked. “What happened to her?”

All the others had woken up and had now gathered around the monk as he recounted the story.

“The girl was said to have vanished.” The monk spoke. “After that, the men settled here as did the monastery. I came here over a year ago, five years after the Church settled on this island and built its first seaside hamlet.”

“Then, people started disappearing. People who tried to settle further inland just…vanished, overnight. Anyone who tried to go after them ended up vanishing too. Rumours started floating around, about imps and goblins and even a werewolf roaming the lands at night, hungry for blood. And a man…”

“A man?” Hjallmar grunted.

“Aye, a man. Dresssed in black, hooded and cloaked like a priest…but…strange… and evil. He had flies buzzing around him like there was something dead or rotting about him. That’s how the stories went. And then…”

The monk gulped and swallowed down a swell of emotion building inside him.

“Steel yourself, boy and tell me what happened!” Hjallmar growled.

“When they first came…it was…a plague…a dark cloud. They came at night and killed the first village. Young farmers just trying to work the land. They dragged them off into the night. Then they came on the second village, closer to the one on the beach. Those of us who tried to investigate, drive them off by prayer and blessings…they turned on us as well. We hid in the monastery, too afraid to come out when we should have. We just sat inside and prayed and prayed and did nothing to shelter the people.”

“And…not long before you arrived…they came for the hamlet. And then…the monastery. I was just…cleaning up after evening mass and then…they…”

The monk trailed off, and his bottom lip was beginning to tremble again.

Hjallmar had heard enough.

“Alright. Enough. So these…creatures… these demons…you reckon there might be a way they were…what…a curse?”

The monk shook his head.

“The result of the celts…turning to the dark one. The prince of lies.”

He looked up at Hjallmar’s eyes.

“Satan. The fallen angel. The Vile Prince of Darkness…The devil.”

This caused a commotion amongst the others. This devil creature had been spoken of by clans who had raided Christian colonies. A fallen angel, who was a proud god-like being before he was cast out and thrown to the world. Since then, he had lived to corrupt and destroy all of their God’s creation.

Hjallmar could only think of few others who in his belief reminded him of the so-called evil one. There was Surtr, the fire giant of Muspellheim who would sink his sword into the heart of Asgard and destroy it, come Ragnarok, and kill Frey who tried to stop him. There were the giants who were evil, and tried to destroy the gods and take the goddess of love Freya as their bride. 

And then…there was Loki himself. Loki the trickster god, who, chained to a cave wall by the intestines of his sons, with poison dripped on his head as punishment for killing one of Odin’s sons. He who would break out of his fleshy chains and lead the giants against Asgard and Midgard, with his giant children, the wolf, and the world swallowing serpent Jormundgandr, to kill Odin and Thor at the end of days.

Whoever this devil figure was, there were far more terrifying figures then this lowly pit fiend. But regardless, if he was responsible for the village, and the source of the invincible horde, then he was not a foe to be trifled with. Not with the limited strength Hjallmar possessed.

And if anything, the monk’s story served only to remind him of how quickly they needed to get off of this island.

Jamie told them of another boat. A small fishing harbour, with a couple of old rowboats tied to the rickety docks. They would have to do. 

Jamie was…persuaded with the incentive of not have his head caved in to guide them the quickest route to the east side of the island. After packing his things, the men set off towards the dock with a lively haste. No one wanted to stay another night on this island, and half the day had been wasted on sleep.

Yet the island proved to be more treacherous than it appeared. The mists rolled in from the mountains, and obscured their way ahead, slowing their progress. The monk was young and had only explored the island once. 

Hjallmar soon came to realise that they would not reach the boat by nightfall. His growing suspicion told him that, owing to the size of the island, it would take a full day to walk from one side to the other.

* * *

By the time they reached a cave, a hole carved into the side of the mountain by what could have only been the previous settlers on the island, the mists had parted, to reveal that the sun was setting, a glowing orange beacon descending down a darkening sky.

“The night will be on us. We’re caught out in the fucking open. Why did we have to leave when it was the middle of the day? Why didn’t we just wait them out for another light and leave at dawn the next day!” Olaffson bemoaned.

“We should have stayed at the monastery.” Magnus growled. “We are so fucked.”

“Enough bleating!” Hjallmar roared to his men. “You and you, get a fire going inside. Chop down some wood. Make some pikes to plant in the ground and some logs to keep the fire going. We make our stand here.”

“But we’ll be overwhelmed. Torn apart!” Those things aren’t scared of fire-” Petur tried to object

“We hold! Our! Ground!” Hjallmar bellowed. “We will not wait for death, and we will not tempt the hordes of hell by making a mad run to the boat. We’ve come too far and we have further to go yet. We hole up here, and make our stand.”

The sun crept further and further down the sky, towards the lid of the ocean in the distance.

“Songs will be sung of this night men!” Hjallmar roared to bolster his men’s spirits.

“But will we be alive to tell and hear them after this night?” Bjorn murmured.

“Bjorn! Help the men gather wood. When dusk comes, you take first watch.” Hjallmar barked. He would have no need of naysayers and cowards tonight.

Any night spent on this Odin-forsaken land was a night too long. The sooner they left this tribal place, the better.

* * *

Dusk came.

And then the night.

For all the barren, deathly hue that hung in the air of the grassy hilled yet desolate land, bugs chirped and the night owl screeched, a strange howling sound that made Hjallmar’s spine shiver.

The men tried to talk, to fill the silence while keeping their vigil. The crackling fire at the cave where most of the twenty strong party huddled offered some warmth and comfort, yet the light cast flickering grave shadows on the stone walls. 

It did little to inspire confidence in the men. Hjallmar’s raiders were brave men, but while they didn’t blubber like women or children in the face of fear, they showed in their eyes, darting about and flinching at the crack of the wood being devoured by the flame, or at the mice and bats making their nightly journeys. 

Yes…by Thor’s beard, his men were afraid. No songs filled the air. No rowdy or bawdy tales floated about in the air about them and the women the young lads were trying to woo at home, or the older men complaining about their wives. Instead, silence hung on them like death’s pallor. 

Hjallmar almost wanted, wished, prayed for something to happen to jolt them out of their malaise.

And then the bugs stopped chirping.

Hjallmar had at first almost not noticed it, so deep was he in his thoughts, that he didn’t bare it much notice until he saw Ulf turn his head, his ears pricking up at the complete absence, the sudden void where the insects’ noises once spoke. 

Jamie had heard it too.

“Get your men back inside!” He hissed in a whispered shrill voice. “Forget guarding the cave- tell your men to light the spears and huddle inside!”

“Quiet…” Hjallmar warned.

“No one out in the open on this island is safe at night! No-one! In the name of God, please-”

“Quiet!” Hjallmar turned his head to growl at the priest.

Then a loud, sonorous, wailing howl, the call of the night that could only ever belong to a wolf, rang out in the night. It was the same beast they heard from the night before, when the village was attacked.

Everyone froze.

“What is that?” Olaf asked, standing with the others and gripping his axe. “A wolf?”

“Too big.” Ulf spoke, and Hjallmar knew it as well. The sound of it, the size of it. It could only be a creature akin to something in the heartland. Where the boys had to prove themselves in the wilds to

become men, and come home alive with the head of the slain creature, or be found strewn across the land come the end of their Proving.

Varulfur. A werewolf had come.

“Spread out!” He barked at the others, and he looked up at Petur as he did.

Petur raised his bow, the fire catching the strands of his blond hair, as he went helmetless to better improve his accuracy.

He froze, as if seeing something, and hazarded another step.

Then something tore out of the misty darkness from his right and struck him in the face.

As quick as it came, it vanished, and Petur listed to the side, before turning around.

His entire lower jaw had been ripped off, and instead of a blonde beard, he sported a red beard, with his tongue lolling down to his neck like a tie.

Then he collapsed onto his front and was still.

* * *

  
The men had risen forth, spears and swords and torches in hand, eager to avenge their death of their scout. 

But Hjallmar soon realised that they all should have listened to the priest.

The varulfur tore out of the darkness and before anyone could swing a sword or thrust at it with the spear, it disembowelled five of the men, tore off the sword arms of another three in quick succession, and then ripped open the throats of another four warriors. 

By the time Ulf and Hjalmar dove into the fray, the hulking werewolf that could easily butcher an aurocks or a bear was biting cleanly through the helm of one of their youngest lads. Jolfsson. He died screaming as the large narrow jaws of the varulfur crushed his skull into a pulp.

Ulf dazzled the creature with his torch before getting some good hits with his sword. The creature snarled and hit him aside with one muscular arm. 

It then kicked Hjallmar down before he could get a strike in. It was the priest charging in, chanting his strange latin tongue and holding up his cross. 

The beast was repulsed by it, lifting its arm and hissing, and Hjallmar could see its wide ears and its yellow eyes blinking like torches, lips peeled back to reveal cracked, yellow and blackened teeth. And human teeth amongst them. Squat molars amongst its hideous jagged fangs.

The beast overcame its fear of the cross and swatted the young priest away with the back of its hand. 

It would have had him if Hjallmar had not gotten in the way. 

Hjallmar didn’t know what madness befell him to face this thing without a shield, but when he tackled the beast and they rolled across the ground, Hjallmar had reached up with his left hand to ward off the beast’s snapping jaws from his neck. 

He was rewarded only with the beast’s teeth cracking the bones in his hand like kindling as the varulfur bit into his hand. His entire hand was engulfed in the slavering beast’s mouth. But Hjallmar had his opening. 

Pushing through the pain, Hjallmar lifted his sword and thrust up the beast’s chin above the neck, so hard that the point burst out of the top of its skull. The beast’s jaws bit down all the way through.

Hjallmar had killed the beast, but at a grave cost, losing his left hand to the beast’s jaws. Hjallmar rolled away as the beast twitched its leg and gave a rattling gasp, clutching at the spurting stump, black blood leaking out of his wrist as Ulf and Magnus charged over.

He looked up at Jamie, his eyes widened at seeing this. Yeah, it hurt like fuck. It was like his entire hand had been dipped in fire. But the beast was dead and his men were safe, and that was all that mattered. 

Thank Odin it was not his sword hand.

His eyes burned into the priest’s as his throat gulped from the hard swallow.

“You better be right about those boats, priest.” He growled at the man, as Bjorn returned with his sword red hot from being held to the fire. The hiss of flesh burning as the heated flat side of the sword pressed against his flesh, cauterising the wound, hurt more than the jaws of the wolf did, and Hjallmar threw back his head to howl with agony into the cold, unfeeling sky. 

* * *

  
“That must have been Fenrir!” Bjorn concluded, as Hjallmar wrapped fresh bandages around his shield hand stump. “That son of that horse cock loving… trickster god Loki! Ymir’s bones…what else could it have been?”

“A hound from the bowls of Hell.” Jamie found the nerve to reply, still staring at Hjallmar’s hand, looking away only when the priest’s eyes met his.   
Good. The priest now feared AND respected him, for saving his scrawny life. Although Hjallmar was not below admitting that the priest’s magic cross helped stave off the creature. 

“Priest…your cross…”

Jamie looked up, snapped out of his stupor from staring at the reddening stump. 

“Yes?” 

“Why did the beast back away from it?”

Jamie composed himself by clearing his throat, his voice trembling as he spoke. 

“The icon of Christ crucified is abhorrent to creatures of darkness. Of Satan’s brood. It is a symbol of good overcoming evil, when Christ sacrificed himself to redeem man of his sins.”

“A god of sacrifice?” Bjorn asked. “Like Odin?”

“Maybe not as…fierce…” Jamie replied, picking his words carefully. “…As yours, but…yes. But for different reasons.”

“Hmm.” Was all Hjallmar had to say to that.

He looked at his stump. His hand lost to the bite of the wolf.

Like Tyr. Tyr who gave his word to surrender his hand to the chained wolf Fenrir, if he could not break his dwarven ribbon bonds.

Tyr. Hjallmar loved Tyr. Idolised him. Tyr the god of war and lawful justice. Tyr who willingly stepped forward to do the right thing. As all Chieftains did.

Hjallmar’s crippling wound did not pain him much after he thought those thoughts.

And with that they carried on. 

On and on they went across the moors and the hills and the forests of the land, following the priest’s guidance. He had grown in confidence and resolve, following last night. Hjallmar could only assume the reason to be because the deaths of Hjallmar’s men weighed on him. Hjallmar’s wound clearly did, the wound he received for saving his life.  
With drive like his, Hjallmar mused as the priest picked his way up to a worn path and bid his men to follow, the boy would find himself free of his chains very soon once they got back.

Perhaps, the monk didn’t need to be in chains after all. 

Their journey continued in the woods for some time, and Hjallmar hoped that they weren’t lost.

But when they made camp in a dense ring of trees, and posted a watch to keep an eye out for the horde, the forest their only hope of staying hidden on open ground, no creatures came.

The men had slept an uneasy and peaceful sleep that night. 

It was only until the next day, when they met the girl, that Hjallmar felt that things were beginning to reach their final outcome.

* * *

Sioned came to Hjallmar’s attention when she tried to rob the priest. 

Clearly sizing them all up and deeming the priest an easier target, she was found wrestling with the priest in the twig and acorn covered ground when the men called him over. They forced the girl off the boy, laughing at how wild she was, with her lithe form, black coal painted about her eyes and her wild shoulder length hair the colour of straw. She stank, and was dressed in bear and wolf skins that left her arms save for her gloved hands, her calves, waist and belly-button exposed, as well as a neck that Hjallmar swore Bjorn could wrap his little finger and thumb around.

A scrappy little girl, she carried a knife with an ornate pommel, two curved hand protectors that curled towards each other to match the handguard’s spokes folding onto the blade. 

The priest seemed scared, thinking that he had finally been ambushed by a demon, but upon seeing the girl appeared to be even more terrified. Hjallmar had heard of the monk’s lifestyle, focussing only stale foods and water to survive, and nothing else. Women were forbidden to them. 

So, it seemed that the priest feared for his immortal soul, whatever that was, because a beautiful woman- a comely lady with scars and startling icy blue eyes- had thrown herself on him. 

Once the men had been calmed down, as well as the woman, who realised that she was in no danger from the lads after they had finished their bawdy jokes, Hjallmar set himself to task to interrogate the would-be thief. 

That was when she became known to him as Sioned.

“My name is Sioned. My family lived here a long time ago, before the men in metal suits came.” She looked down as she spoke. “I am all that is left.”

“The people in the villages are not your people?” Ulf asked. “You live on your own?”

“Yes.” She spoke, after a while.

“How do you know our language, and speak it so well?” Hjallmar asked. She spoke their tongue as if she grew up with it.

“My clan traded with your people, and had to learn it to avoid starting fights or provoke raids.” 

Hjallmar thought back. Come to think of it, there was indeed an island to the south, recorded as a trading place, surrounded by mists that often hid it, making the place hard to find even with the stars guiding their way. The raiders didn’t always invade and pillage any place they discovered back then.

But then if the men in the metal suits, the Pope’s armies, conquered this land so long ago, then how was this Celt still alive?

“How old are you?” Hjallmar asked. “You look to be the same age as my daughter back home.”

“I have seen twenty-five winters.” Replied the girl, her face made of stone as she spoke with razors in her tongue. “I lost my family and tribe…when I was eight and ten, to the men in the metal suits, and…after.”

“My God…” Jamie spoke, stepping forward. “You…you are the girl. You’re the girl that the druids tried to sacrifice…the pact, the woman used for the exchange…”

Sioned may as well be called Wolf Girl, for the way her eyes met the priest’s and burned into his with all the intent of ripping out his throat with her own teeth. 

“I was chosen as a sacrifice. Against my will...” She bit out. “Because your warriors were killing my people. The druids of my village grew desperate, and stupid. They consoled the stars and read the entrails and inhaled their smoking incense and spoke in trances…and they decided that the only way to stop the march of the cross-holding knights was to sacrifice me to the Horned God.”

She shook her head softly.

“The druids swore that it was him they spoke to, like they did before…The green man. Cernunnos. Your cross warriors called him Pan.”

“Pan?” Magnus questioned.

“A pagan god. He wears horns on his head and goat legs. A god of vegetation, life, and lust.” Jamie replied, with poorly hidden contempt in his voice.

“I like him.” Magnus nodded, satisfied.

“Except, that it wasn’t” Sioned spoke. “Whoever the druids spoke…I know it, I saw it. I saw the being that…came through the fire. Cernunnos never came through fire but that was what the druids believed because it was what he demanded, except it wasn’t Cernunnos.”

She fell silent, and Hjallmar waited a full five seconds before Ulf found the courage to speak.

“Who was it then?” Ulf growled in his calm, timbre voice.

Sioned could only shake her head again.

“There were…flies…buzzing around his head…he had horns like a ram’s. And his eyes…evil…soulless…red…no creature or god should look like that.” She spoke, as if possessed by a mournful spirit, with all life departed from her. 

Hjallmar knew the look from warriors who had seen too much in the field of battle. Who had lost too much. Or done too much.

Sioned looked at his eyes as she spoke.

“I was promised to a devil. A devil who pretended to be Cernunnos stole into our ritual, and the druids, the wise men who worshipped the Green Man since they lived on this island…were fooled. In the end it was a waste of time. The metal men killed my tribe and the druids, and I barely escaped.”

She looked about her as she spoke.

“I have been living in these forests and surviving ever since. The monsters won’t come here. This forest was blessed by my gods. No evil or mischief will enter here. Even this…devil’s power cannot touch me here. But he hasn’t stopped trying.”

“For five years he has tried to take me. Tried to capture me and take me as his bride, because that was what he wanted. He didn’t want a blood sacrifice. He wanted a wife. A young woman for himself.

“And when he didn’t get what he wanted, he began to lose patience. He began to send his minions out to feast on the people and animals of the land. Consuming them until eventually only a few villages were left. The last I heard of them, they had moved to the northern beach.”

“We met them there.” Magnus snarled. “They killed our men and one of them bit off our chieftain’s hand.”

“So many people…died because of me.” Sioned aggrieved, and her eyes shone in the fire as unshed tears filled her eyelids. “Because I wouldn’t give that monster what he wanted. This entire land, my homeland is cursed because of the blood shed and the bodies left unburied here, and…because I refused to be some devil’s…”

She lifted a hand and wiped her wet eyes. “A bride is far too kind for what he intends for me. The things he has done to try and draw me out…there is no goodness in him.”

“No good can ever exist in an unholy creature.” Jamie spoke, and his tone was softer now. He ought to be less prickly and high on his own horse with his faith in the nailed god if he wanted to stay on the Celt’s good side, Hjallmar reflected.

“What should we do?” Olaffson asked. “If we leave these woods, those hordes will be on us by nightfall.”

“Staying in the woods won’t keep us safe.” Sioned replied. “They’ve been getting bolder and venturing further into the woods before the forest takes them. It is only a matter of time. I have seen the boats, to the eastern coast. I had hoped to get to them, but the way down is slow and treacherous. The master blocked the path by causing an earthquake and a rockslide. There is no other way for me to go during the day that won’t leave me wondering this land by nightfall.”

“Then we have no other choice.” Hjallmar decided. “At first light we make for the cliffs. See if we can’t find another way down that doesn’t involve breaking our necks.”

Sioned looked at his men, battered and wounded, yet chatting amongst themselves, grateful to be sheltered by the trees of the island.

Her eyes were filled again with that same soullessness within her as she spoke in a weary, dreading voice.

“Not all of us will make it…”

* * *

Sioned caught some rabbits with her bow for the journey, and showed the priest boy the right berries to gather. Despite the fact that the celt tried to rob the priest when they first met, the two additional guests to Hjallmar’s band appeared to tolerate each other. 

Despite their shared animosity of their peoples, both appeared to see the sense that instead of killing each other, they had to stick together.

By rights, sure, they had blood between them. But the priest didn’t look like a killer. He was a priest. His kind were for blessing and prayers and hold a crook instead of an axe. And the celt, well, whatever fire there was in her eyes appeared to have died a long time ago.

Hjallmar caught them conversing as they made ready to pack up camp.

“I’m surprised, given the history of our people, that you haven’t tried to kill me since we met.”

“Maybe I’m just biding my time and waiting until your raider guardian has his back turned.” Sioned replied with indifference in her tone, scraping her fancy knife with her whetstone.

That made the priest turn pale, and focus on packing his bag with renewed interest.

Sioned stopped sharpening her blade, and sheathed it in the leather pouch on her belt.

“Or, maybe I have had enough of killing and death.” Sioned added. “And you just got lucky…priest.”

Jamie looked on her with that look of sympathy, his eyes softening, a bit like the look he gave to Hjallmar’s left stump.

Pity.

Jamie bit his lips and swallowed, juggling his words on his tongue before speaking.

“For what it is worth…I am sorry for what my people did to yours. God…the people behind the orders…I feel, have felt for some time…that they are not always right.”

“Sorry will not undo the past.” Sioned replied, standing and shouldering her bag. “Or bring my parents back from the Other World. You didn't kill my tribe by yourself, so your apology is worthless. But at least you see sense not to preach to me about how barbarian I am…or how my people are heathen scum to be put to the sword and flame.”

“You’re not a heathen…” Jamie spoke, standing up after her. “And I see now that your people should have been left alone. All this wouldn’t have happened if the church hadn’t been so greedy.”

“So you priests see, after so much has been done. Spare me your words, priest. This island is been damned for far too long to be conquered or raided. You want to do right? Start by using that cross of yours to protect us. Or better yet build some to give to the pig smelling raiders. Perhaps then we might stand a chance.”

Hjallmar chuckled to himself as the celt left the bewildered priest to fumble with his berries. She reminded him of his wife at a younger age. Missed no tricks and didn’t take any shit from anyone. The priest would be very lucky to get on her good side. Very lucky indeed. A fine woman was one who could hold her own and likely be fiercer than her man.

“You heard her, priest.” Ulf spoke to the boy as he looked up with a slack jawed expression. “Before we march, gather some twigs and twine. First stop we make you get to work.” And he patted Hjallmar’s vest as he walked past chuckling with him.

* * *

Their things gathered, they headed off.

The journey resumed once again, albeit this time at a hurried pace. The girl spoke of a cave she spied in her last ranging, so they took their chances and made for it with all speed.

At first, the mists threatened again to be the doom of the group, and one path gave away before one intrepid raider’s feet. If Bjorn hadn’t grabbed him by the wrist, they would have lost another raider.

It was not until they continued on their journey, picking their way across a pathway of shattered and jagged rocks, surrounding by boulders and dead trees reaching over them like gnarly arthritic old man fingers, that the mists cleared, and the sound of the sea could be heard. 

The song of the seagulls stirred the blood of the men more than any song of the Volva or the Valkyries ever could, and they all hurried to the edge to see, lo and behold, the cliffside path was right before them. Broken and winding and narrow in places, but there for them all, and at the bottom of the seemingly fathomless cliff, there stood a rickety old dock, and two wide rowboats.

It was impossible to tell their condition from here, or how long it had been since anyone used them. The priest and the celt were useless in that regard, having not been brave enough to venture beyond the confines of their homes since the recent invasion. But they had no other choice, and they had come too far from their dwindling safe havens to go back or reconsider now.

Their only chance now was to make preparations to descend down the cliff face.

But as the mists further parted, they realised that their journey had taken longer than they realised, and the evening was beginning to draw in.

It was decided that not only would it be suicide to descend the unsteady cliffs in the fading light, but also that there would be no natural shelter if they were caught on the cliffs by the horde. 

They had no choice, but to seek shelter once again.

“Take us to the cave you saw.” Hjallmar ordered to Sioned, and she did.

On their way, they saw what appeared to be a depression in the earth. It was a grey, ashen part of the land, where no grass grew, and only crumbling soot and husks of wood and stone that crumbled on their feet.

“Is this the cave?” Magnus asked. 

Sioned looked down, and to her right, down the huge groove, that looked like a huge wyrm had eaten its way through the earth.

She shook her head.

“No. We keep going. Don’t stop here. We keep going.”

“Why the fuck not?” Einar, a spear man whined. “My feet are aching. What if we don’t find our way to your cave before nightfall?”

“We can’t go in there.” Sioned insisted.

“And why not?” Ulf asked.

She turned around and kept walking.

“Because that’s where they came from.”

Once her words sunk in, the men followed suit, eager to make tracks and kicking off the grey ash off their boots as they ventured after the celt, as she led them further inland to their next shelter.

Hjallmar was behind his men as they left the cave, sparing it no further glances or any further thoughts.

He preferred to convince himself that the orange glow coming from the black cave was his tired mind fooling him with the desire of fire and shelter.

And not something else…

* * *

  
The group found a stream not far from Sioned’s chosen shelter, and this excited Jamie. While Sioned bent on all fours to drink from it like some she-wolf, Jamie was using a goblet he procured and muttering to it and making the sign of the cross.

“I am blessing the water. I plan to pour it on your spears and swords to give us a chance against the demon horde. I’m sure the taste of blessed steel and iron will sour their appetite, and make sure that they don’t come back after we kill them.” The monk clarified.

“They can come back?” Bjorn rumbled.

“Maybe wait for a while before you start pouring river water on our weapons, boy.” Ulf spoke and pointed upstream.

All of them looked up to Magnus with his breeches dropped and relieving himself with a groan into the stream. Jamie poured out the water from his goblet, and then pointed it out to Sioned.

She saw and spat out the water, wiping her mouth clean. She stormed off, cursing at them in her celtic tongue.

“Wait!” Hjallmar growled, clutching her by the shoulder with his hand. She stopped, her eyes a challenge, daring him to mock or goad her. Hjallmar did neither, instead offering her his water sack. 

“Take mine.” He shook it for her to hear. “It’s still full.”

She did, and taking a swig, she stormed off, taking the sack with her.

“She’ll be popular back home with the lads.” The ulfednar observed, putting his business back in his breeches as he watched her go.

“More like a terror if they try to get her in the sack. She’ll most likely bite their cocks off or cut their throats if the boys want a bit of fun.” Olaffson added with a nervous edge to his voice behind his grin.

“No one is getting rowdy with her.” Hjallmar growled. “We don’t do that to our slaves. And if anyone of you here tries anything with her, the horde gets another body to feast on when we make our escape. Understood?!”

The men murmured their assent and carried on inspecting their weapons.

Jamie was still watching her go, and upon observing this, Hjallmar decided that Sioned could do with someone watching her back. Not that he didn’t trust his men, but still…

“Boy.”

Jamie looked up at him.

“If any of my men try and mess around with Sioned, you walk right up to them and hit them as hard as you can. Straight at the jaw. If you get beat up, I’ll know that my man was in the wrong, and he’ll be food for the crows for trying to touch a woman without her say.”

“But…but I…” Jamie stammered.

“You’re a monk without a monastery, and you’re about to be taken as a slave to the hardest fuckers in the cold unforgiving north you will ever know. I’m not asking you to be like one of the lads, but I expect a man to protect what he cares for. Can you do that for Sioned? And don’t deny that you like her because I’ve seen those longing glances you’ve been giving her.”

“I’m…” the monk stuttered. “I took vows…before God to never-”

“You can pine for her and keep your balls blue until they burst for all I care.” Hjallmar interjected. “No-one gives a shit. But a man should protect his woman regardless of who she is to him. My people won’t like you, and likely never will, but they’ll respect you for standing up for yourself. Otherwise, you’re just stupid meat. Understood?”

Jamie’s mouth bobbed as he tried to fumble for a response, before he conceded, shut his mouth and nodded.

“Good man.” Hjallmar nodded and patted his shoulder. “You get to making those crosses. Wait a minute before pouring water on our swords, eh?” 

Jamie nodded, and took his sword when he handed it to him. 

* * *

  
Jamie was pouring water and whispering to Ulf’s blade when Sioned’s scream cut through the valley.

Hjallmar picked up his blade and Jamie picked up his cross and followed after, lifting his robes above his legs like a woman’s skirt.

They rounded the corner, and Hjallmar could hear his men following behind-  
-when a searing wall of hot fire slid across the ground and rose up from the fissure. Cutting him and Jamie off from the other men.

There was a circle of flame in front of them too, on the plateau that Hjallmar saw that they were on. The mountain to their left, and a sheer drop on their right.

A man was walking towards them.

He was dressed in black, and there was an incessant buzzing sound, caused by the flies hovering around his gaunt, tall form.

He was holding Sioned by her throat in his left hand. The celt was limply struggling against his grip, clawing and gripping at his hand, his wrist.

A hand that had dark crimson claws, and pale rotting skin like a leper.

The hooded man looked at them, and Hjallmar saw that he was dressed in black robes, like the monk in his brown raiment. But Hjallmar saw no face under the hooded cowl. Just darkness. Pure, pitch black darkness.

Jamie flanked him and raised his cross.

“Agnus dei, salvemus animas monitis…” He began to chant.

The figure waved his free right hand and the monk dropped like a sack of sticks.

His faceless visage looked at Hjallmar.

He felt…something…slivering…pressing against his mind, and when the figure spoke, he didn’t hear it…he felt it…the words like oil pressing on his brain.

“Apologies for the rude introduction. I do believe we got off on the wrong foot.” The figure gestured, flamboyant and showy, like a skaal reenacting his sagas. His voice sounded like three madmen snarling in his ear, whispering in his skull.

The man in black bowed, holding his hand to his chest while still holding Sioned in his hand.

“I…am Beelzebub. The Lord of Flies. At your service.” 

He rose to his full height.

“Second-in-command to the prince of darkness, Satan, the one true god of this earth.”

“I know many gods.” Hjallmar growled, yet he found himself unable to move. His sword arm refused to obey him. Whatever sorcery this man was working, it had rooted him to the spot.

“Yet I do not know you, sorcerer.”

“Sorcerer?” The being spoke, incredulous at such an accusation. “Is that what you make of me, mortal? Well I suppose this form I choose is quite frail. My power remains weakened, and I cannot walk this land for long, lest I spend too much of my power, and attract…”

He looked up to the cloudy sky.

“...unwanted attention.”

He looked back at him.

“You and the priest have been quite a nuisance lately. Interfering with my search for my bride. She is to my wife of whom I will seed my earthly incarnation. An inspired idea, much to my regret, but I digress.”

He rose the celtic woman higher up in his grasp, immune to her kicking legs and her writhing, scratching and punching.

“With this beauty, promised to me by those stupid desperate druids, I will plunge this world into a new era of darkness. I will prove myself worthy of ascending the throne of Pandemonium, and I will hold the entire world at my mercy.”

“Let go of me!” Sioned hissed at him. “Let…me fucking go!”

“Only when I bind you in chains in my city. Be at peace.” He soothed with his snake-like voice. “Your days of fleeing from me and checking your every shadow are now at an end.”

He looked back at him.

“And then there is you. The unexpected guest on my lovely little spit of land. You killed my hellhound. Bravo. I could slowly torture you over the course of a hundred years until your old body gives out, but do not think I have not noticed your strength. Such fire would be useful amongst my horde. Why go back to your empty life of raiding and pillaging, when I could give you an army.”

He gestured to Hjallmar’s bandaged left arm. Sioned’s eyes met his in a desperate glance.

“I could make you whole again. Give you a new hand. A stronger hand. Better than any hand that there ever was. I could make you a king, the king of the entire world, if you submit to me. All you have to do is sacrifice the lives of your men to me, and the priest, and all the power in the world could be yours. Eternal life. Strength to topple the mightiest of foes. Women to satisfy your every depraved desire.”

His grip tightened on the celt’s neck and she began to cough and choke. 

“You should not have burnt my minon’s food in that village. You have led your men unwillingly to their deaths by choosing to come to the monastery. Whether you submit to me or rebel, it makes no difference. They are all dead, or will be, in any case.”

“You’ve never fought a Viking before then.” Hjallmar growled, fighting against the weight boring down on his mind. “Let the girl go and I’ll show you what even a crippled chieftain can hold his own against you…imp.”

The hooded figure stiffened slightly.

“…now you’re just being rude.”

“I’m a married, and I have everything I need.” Hjallmar defiantly spoke. “You’re just a trickster, like Loki. I won’t fall for your honeyed words. Let the girl go, and we can settle this man to…whatever the fuck you are.”

The hood lowered, and Hjallmar knew that he had tested the being’s limited patience. Sioned’s struggles grew limper, and Hjallmar wanted to rush forward and tackle the creature before it choked her to death.

“I think I’ll pass. You humans…”

He lifted his right hand, and opened his fingers, splaying them out towards him.

“…so rebellious against your betters…as if the very act would merit you with fortune and strength…the favour of the gods…but there is a reason your kind will always be the underdog.”

Hjallmar felt the weight begin to press down, harder and harder on his mind. He began to hear whispers, licking against his ear and mind, as if a hundred men were up close and whispering around him. 

“Do not resist.” The being’s voice weaved in and out of his mind, rising and falling in volume. “Do not fight…against my power…No creature or weapon…can match me…nothing can!”

“N…no…” Hjallmar cursed and tried to push it out of his mind, but like quagmire his thoughts had become stuck and were slowly sinking into oblivion. He was losing. Hjallmar knew it. The being’s power was great, and his mind, hardened by battle and experience as it was, was no match.

“Pathetic…old fool.” The hooded figure derisively mocked, as his vision began to fade.

He was aware of his sword being pulled from its scabbard.

“Behold!” Jamie was screaming. “The power of God!”

And the monk was running towards the devil.

“Wait…that sword…” The figure realised. 

The sword that Hjallmar ordered to be blessed.

The blade caught the fire, gleaming and dazzling as it swung at the demon.

There was a railing screech as a group of clawed fingers, like the severed heads of serpents, clacked onto the stony ground. The devil looked at his hand, bearing four stumps and a thumb.

The sword flashed again, swinging up-

-And the being was howling again, clutching his left hand and staggering away.

 _But his hand is on the floor._ Hjallmar absently thought to himself, as he saw the spidery fingered limb, spurting blood on the ground.

Jamie was holding Sioned, and lifting the sword, catching and cradling the gasping woman under his left arm and pointing his sword, Hjallmar’s sword at the hooded figure couched over his limb.

Hjallmar felt the weight leave his mind.

And with it gone, his strength and anger returned.

With a mighty roar he ran at the black robed figure as it staggered towards the plateau’s edge. He lifted his hand and his stumped forearm and shoved it hard, feeling nothing but bone underneath its robes like the priest, hard.

The being screamed as it tumbled off the plateau’s edge. Hjallmar didn’t try to ignore the cloven hooves where its feet should have been as it fell out of view.

Hjallmar waited for the crash, the sound of anything to tell him that the figure was a mortal man with sorcery up his wide sleeves.

But then a large bat, large and winged like hawk, flew up, accompanied by the flies. As it left, the being’s voice rang out again.

“By the next morning…all of you shall lie dead! This I swear by the dark lord himself! And she will be mine! Mine forever!”

And with that he was gone.

Sioned was crying, and Jamie was holding her head and rubbing her messy straw-coloured hair, whispering to her and comforting her.

The fire went out, Hjallmar heard it go out, felt the searing heat leave his back, and Ulf was running towards him.

“Hjallmar! What happened!”

Hjallmar said nothing. Instead he bent to his knees and vomited, spewing his guts on the stony ground.

There were flies in his bile, he noticed…

He saw the fingers and the hand writhing as they turned to maggots, and wriggled away into the undergrowth.

“Odin preserve us…” Bjorn spoke to himself.

* * *

Come the days end, Jamie made sure everyone had a cross. The men did not believe in their power but given the unknown nature of their enemy, they weren’t willing to take any chances. They clutched them to their chests like girls with their straw-dolls.

“Where is the monk?” Magnus was asking. “I want to hear it true if he really did swing that sword of his like he wasn’t a monk! Huh? Like a fucking hero, swooping in like Sigurd to save the day, huh! Where is he? He’s getting a drink on us when we get home. Put hairs on that boy’s chest!”

Ulf came up around the corner of the cave, where some thick bushes were placed. He nodded at Hjallmar, as he nursed his cup of hot water to warm his sore throat, and raised a hand to stop the wolf-skinned warrior.

“He’s with the Celtic woman.” Ulf spoke. 

“And what would they be doing together alone?” Magnus shrugged and tried to push past him, only to be held in place by Ulf’s hand.

“…Wrestling.” Was Ulf the stoic’s answer.

“Wrestling? After he saved her life? Shame they still don’t like each other.” Simple Bjorn spoke.

“Not the wrestling you’re thinking of, Bjorn.” Was Ulf’s reply.

It took a full five seconds before realisation hit them like a slap to the face.

“Oooohhhh….” Magnus spoke. He nodded at Bjorn, who had caught on as well. “Our hero monk, eh?”

“Hmm.” Hjallmar grunted, swallowing down his hot water. “He’s earned his place amongst us. The girl too. When we get home, they won’t be slaves. They’ll get a slice of land, provided they help with the harvest and the farming.”

The other men agreed.

When Jamie stumbled around the corner, he was greeted with a cavalcade, an explosion of male cheer and support, rowdy and bawdy, with howls and whoops from the men to congratulate the boy on becoming a man. 

The monk, former monk now it seemed, blushed and turned away. Until Sioned stormed around the corner, grabbed his hand, fixed the wolf-whistlers and the praisers with steel in her gaze to shut them up and marched the stumbling, blushing man of the cloth back past the throng to the back of the cave, down a hidden passage where she, and him, would be out of sight.

Hjallmar stood to his feet, throwing aside the wooden cup.

“Listen up! Hold those crosses on you. Keep them in your belts, your hands. They’re like the burial crosses of the warrior God Frey. Like our monk here, he bedded a fierce woman. A giantess! Think on him and the gods of war tonight. Tonight this lord of flies will come for us, and when he does, we’ll be ready! Ready to show him why we sons of Odin, of Thor, of Tyr, fear no alien gods on any alien land! Are you with me?!”

He was answered with a roar from his men. Battered and bloodied but able, they would see this night through, to the bitter end.

And then they would get off this miserable island once and for all.

By Odin, they would have a tale to tell when they got home.

* * *

That night Beelzebub’s forces, like the locusts he so pimped them out to be, attacked the cave.

They came like a mockery of the great Odin’s Wild Hunt, and Hjalmar fought and fought and fought, as did his men. Bjorn and Magnus roared and became like their beastly forms, unchained as of Hjallmar’s orders, to give their all and last to honour their Valkyrie wives in Valhalla.

But the storm of claws and teeth and screaming imps that descended on them was worst than any blizzard he and his men had weathered. 

A blizzard that proved to be a storm of death. Even the twig crosses the priest built held the imps and fiends off for only so long, at least, for the men who were able to rustle them off of their belts.

Then the dark screaming shadows descended on them in a deluge of horror, flooding the cave and drowning out the fires with their eyes glowing in the dark and biting, ripping teeth. Men gave their arms to battle, only to have them torn from their sockets, their mouths opened to yell only to have their tongues plucked out, their legs severed and their heads brained against the granite wall of the cave.

Carnage ensured, and screams and cries and the stink of blood and piss filled the ear, as the beasts ripped his men to pieces.

Something hit Hjallmar on the head and he fell into darkness and silence.

When he awoke, pushing off half of Gormundur off of him, only he, Magnus, Bjorn and Ulf remained. 

Jamie and Sioned were alive as well. Jamie had found and blessed a blanket and covered himself and Sioned within a small carve-out within the cave. It was the only reason the horde had not carried them off or torn them apart as well.

Hjallmar limped from a cut that stuck too deep in his angle. Ulf wrapped a sash over his missing left eye. Bjorn had one of his ears bitten off. Magnus…Magnus just stared. He was staring listlessly at the cave wall, spattered with the red gore of his blood brothers.

He no longer joked or laughed, as he did before, no matter how much they talked to him thereafter. When he got up, only when Bjorn spoke his name and nudged him, Olaffson’s head rolled away from his feet like a ball, his eyes rolled up into his skull.

And they were the only survivors.

Now, all that was left was the boat.

* * *

But as they began to make their way down, the gods, or the devil, or whoever was running the show up there, Hjallmar was no longer certain- played their cruellest ploy yet.

A lone wave came and struck the old wooden dock, briefly swallowing it under water, along with the two boats.

When the water cleared, only one boat was left, bobbing along and still tied stubbornly to the remains of the dock.

And the escapees looked at each other. And for a time were truly lost on what to do.

Hjallmar knew however. He looked at Ulf, his trusted advisor and friend, and he nodded back. He knew too.

Hjallmar stood straight and addressed his men, the few who remained, and the monk and the celtic woman as he spoke.

“Men…over the course of a few days, we have lost more than we hoped to dream of. I came to this island, hoping for riches and treasure to bolster our clan’s fortune, in trade and in tales to swap with one another. I didn’t think this…to be my last raid, but it appears, that Odin is calling me. Calling me home to Valhalla to his mead hall, and the wild pig that is killed and eaten every night, yet never dies.”

He looked at Ulf.

“Does Odin call you, Ulf my old friend?”

“He does, great Chieftain.” Ulf nodded back.

“And you, Bjorn?” 

Bjorn nodded, his long-axe bitten and scratched, yet still strong and sturdy.

“My Valkyrie wife has been singing to me from the other side, Chieftain.”

And you, Magnus?”

Magnus was silent, and then he spoke.

“I don’t think I can go home…not after what I saw last night.” He looked up to the island, back where the glowing cave was. “Let me stay, and battle my way to Valhalla, so my Valkyrie will welcome me with open arms.”

He looked over to his brother.

“Besides...always did get jealous of you whenever you got something that I didn’t. Especially if its gonna be Valkyrie pu-”

“Ahem.” Ulf warned, with Sioned being present.

Hjallmar looked on his older friend with great approval. His experience and presence would be invaluable to whoever was the next chieftain of his clan.

“Ulf?”

“Yes Chieftain?”

“I need you to take Jamie and Sioned home. To our island in the north. They won’t know the way. And besides…I can’t row with one hand.”

Ulf’s weathered and wrinkly, bearded face blanched, as if he had been struck by an arrow to the heart.

“My Chieftain, I…”

“My clan will need you. To comfort my wife and children, and to advise the next leader. Put in a good word for my eldest boy, if the gods favour him, aye?”

Ulf looked as though he might object, but looking into his serious eyes, he resigned, and blinked to hide his tears welling in his one eye.

“As you say…My chieftain.”

He turned away.

Sioned came up to him.

“I…” She began. “I lost your water skin.”

Hjallmar smiled humourlessly.

“Don’t worry about it, girl. I won’t need it,…not where I’m going.”

She lifted her arms and hugged him. 

“Thank you.” She whispered.

When they broke apart, Hjallmar put his hand on her shoulder.

“Go home with Ulf and your monk lover. Make an honest man of him, and be a good mother to his children, Odin-willing.”

“I will…” She nodded, and then her eyes filled and reddened with unshed tears and she had to turn away too.

“I…” Jamie said, stepping forward. He tried to speak, uncertain, a thousand words racing through his mind. He’ll father clever children, provided he’s brave enough and lucky to survive being a Viking who was once a priest. This Hjallmar knew without a doubt.

“Thank you.” Was what he chose to say in the end.

“Take care of that woman, Jamie. You be a good man to her. Remember what I said…about protecting your woman.”

“I’ll be the one looking after him more like.” Sioned smiled bittersweetly, and her hand held his.

On seeing them together, Hjallmar thought of his wife, and how he would never see her again, feel her breath on his neck when she slept, or the snort she made when she laughed. Her touch and her whispers in his ear. Her naked body under his own. He held onto those thoughts…and then turned away.

“Bjorn…Magnus…with me…and to Valhalla.”

He looked back at Ulf, one last time.

“When you get home…Sing of our story, Ulf. Or perhaps…find someone who can sing. I know you can’t sing for shit…” That earned him a dry chuckle from Ulf, his eyes glistening as he looked up at him. “And whatever you do…make sure no one comes near this fucking island ever again.”

Ulf nodded.

“It has been an honour following you, worthy and mighty chieftain.”

He then added.

“You truly are…Tyr reborn.”

And Hjallmar felt something like a son would feel to a father figure he loved when he showered him with praise he never asked for yet so sorely needed. His eyes watered, and he nodded, the closest he could come to saying thanks to the wise old warrior, who supported his claim and his rule for the past twenty or so winters.

Then he turned away, following his berserkir and ulfednar up the pathway, back onto the cliffs.

Back on to the island.

* * *

  
Hjallmar hoped that they made it.

He hoped that the path was not all the way treacherous, and that Jamie, Sioned and Ulf made their way safely to the boat.

Ulf having one eye, his depth perception may be off, but he’s been a hardened warrior all of his life, and he’ll only need the one to see the stars and guide himself and the priest and the celt home.

He hoped that they would have good lives. That Ulf would finally settle and get a woman who will keep him tied down to one home and stop brooding to himself. He hoped that Jamie would be recognised for his bravery. He looked soft, so he would have to be trained as a shield brother. Maybe he’ll join his men on raids. Maybe he’ll stop them. 

Maybe, the days of raiding will be behind his tribe. Perhaps they did not need to live so savage a life. Raiding was still raiding, even with the rules he strictly imposed.

He hoped, whatever path his tribe took, that it was one that gave them prosperity. Lives all worthy of being received in Valhalla. 

Perhaps the Christ God would be merciful and take the women and children into his home in the clouds. Valhalla was a place for men and warriors after all, though Hjallmar knew women who were equally as deserving to sit in the great mead hall as much as the men were. 

Helheim was a cold place for people who weren’t warriors. He hoped Jamie and Sioned did not end up there, at the end of their long lives.

They stopped at the mouth of the glowing cave.

Sharing glances with Bjorn armed with his long ax and Magnus with two swords, in each hand, one replacing his shredded shield, bear-skin and wolf-skin alike, Hjallmar nodded. 

He had his sword sheathed on his belt, and he held a spear. He set it down to remove his helm. His silver hair fell to his shoulders.

He was ready. 

Together the three men walked into the cave.

They did not get far, before something crashed down behind them. As one they all turned to see a pile of boulders fall, blocking the entrance to the cave, and their only way out.

Loki shits in their dinner once again.

Hjallmar looked ahead.

There was still light, coming from the orange glow ahead.

They carried on. No turning back now.

When they reached the end of the corridor, they were in a huge dark cavernous chamber, with a high ceiling filled with stalactites.

The source of light was a huge black iron brazier, so large and massive that it lit up all of the chamber. The design of it was hideous, gnarled like the crown of a monster, with horned frowning cackling skulls, flames dancing through their eyes as they leered out at the three men.

There was a passageway at the opposite side of the chamber, shrouded entirely by darkness.

And out of that darkness, he came.

The clopping sounds of its hooves hitting the ground echoed throughout the chamber. From what Hjallmar could see, his fingers and his hand severed were still severed. They were burning white, like small embers of light.

Good…the wound that the monk inflicted with Hjallmar’s sword would pain him still, and he had brought it with him, to finish the job.

The sound of small flies buzzing once again filled the air.

And then he spoke, the words once again, being felt rather than heard, pressing down onto his brain. His very mind and soul.

“I see you have come to your senses. I never thought…” The fiend stopped in his tracks, his faceless hooded head searching amongst him and his brothers.

“Where is the girl?” The fiend demanded.

“Gone. Long out of your reach.” Hjallmar replied.

The fiend lowered his head.

“I see.”

Staring at them under his dark cowl, Beelzebub began to pace slowly around the brazier.

“Do you have…any idea…as to the suffering…you have reaped on yourselves…for denying me what was rightfully mine?”

Magnus chose to speak.

“The way I see it, you’re just a lonely man in a dress, sitting alone in a cave. And because of a monk who doesn’t fight, you don’t even have fingers to wank yourself to sleep. Just a thumb to suck, like a cuckolded baby.”

Bjorn snorted.

“And we’re here to tuck you in…with an axe to put you to sleep.”

The brothers laughed, and Hjallmar allowed it as he saw the hooded figure begin to shake with unbridled rage. Laughed raucously and boisterously, like taunting a bully in their childhood or a brute who had drank too much and fondled the wrong girl. 

Like none of them had ever faced something like this before. Like this was just another up-his-own-arse sorcerer.

Hjallmar let them. He was busy eyeing the beast’s head, as if he wanted to stare into the fathomless depths of this fiend’s soulless mind.

When really he was marking his target. To throw his blessed spear right into the fiend’s skull.

He doubted that would kill it, but knowing the creature would be breathing through a burning new hole in its head would help him rest easier when the Valkyries came to collect him.

 _Would they be able to get into this cave?_ He wondered.

“You…” Beelzebub seethed. “…will pay dearly…for your infantile, mortal…barbaric…impudent…insults!”

And he stepped forward, and set his cloven hoof down.

Except now the foot was changing. Twisting and growing, and changing shape. Spikes emerged along its leg, and along the other. They grew and lengthened and twisted and bent more ways than any man’s should.

More of the strange legs, another pair, burst from the fiend’s robes as its body grew. Its body was hairy and yet glistening under a carapace like shell.

Its arms lengthened too, and bent and warped and twisted further, and spikes spewed like swords sprouting from the demon’s ruined hands.

Its head appeared next, and its eyes were like that of a blue bottles, large and bulbous and many eyed, all of them blinking with human eyes as they glared vehemently down at the three men. About its head, two ram like horns curled and pointed outwards. Just as Sioned described.

What was once a man with goat legs was now a towering bug creature. It looked like a fly, but instead of wings it held only a hardened shell. 

In its jaws, slavering spiked and bulbous pincers covered a lower jaw lined with row upon row of sharp, curved teeth, as it salivated and spoke to them.

“Go ahead. Pray to your gods for mercy from me! They will not hear you down here!” The insectoid beast taller than the mast of their longship hissed in mocking voice.

But Hjallmar didn’t need to pray.

The bug tried to cow them further.

“You were fools to come before me alone! It will be a mere distraction to kill you. Do you not fear me?! Do you not look on me and see your deaths!” The behemoth insect snarled and snapped at them, its saliva hissing as globules trickled down and splattered into the flame.

But Hjallmar was not afraid. 

Instead, he stepped forward and spoke.

“I told you before, demon. I have been given everything I ever want. I have been given a chance to follow the heroes of the sagas we sing at home. We are Tyr against Garm the Hellhound! We are Frey against the fire giant Surtr. We are Thor against Jormundgandr. Odin against Fenrir! And Heimdall the watcher, against the traitor and trickster Loki!”

He lifted and slammed down his spear on the ground with a resounding crash on the floor.

“We have been training for the end of days. The days of Ragnarok, when Odin calls his best warriors to the battle in which three winters shall come, and men slay each other like beasts, and the sun and the moon shall be swallowed, and all the realms unmade by the clashing of gods and giants! We are not afraid of a cowering bug who Thor would easily step on, who Odin would outwit, who Tyr would easily slay! I say to you, demon- we are not afraid!”

The giant insect, Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, twitched its head and glowered at them with his many eyes. Then it opened its hideous maw, to fill the air with a piercing hissing roar of outrage and hatred.

When it closed its mouth, Hjallmar heard them. The sound of many voices in clamour, all hissing and snapping and snarling and baying for their blood.

Beelzebub had called its horde on them.

Finally. A worthy end to the saga of Hjallmar Ulfsson and his band of brothers.

The creature laughed, filling the cave with its sadistic, bloodthirsty cackle.

“You’re all about to die. Die ripped to pieces and screaming for your mothers in a cave on a god-forsaken island. You say you are not afraid? You will meet your death begging for your suffering to end!”

The giant insectoid screamed again, and reared up from its hind legs as it prepared to charge.

From out of the dark passageway, dark crawling bodies began to stream out of the cave.

“Ulfednar, Berserkir! Unchain yourselves!” Hjallmar roared, and primed his spear.

Bjorn and Magnus cried out the names of their Valkyrie wives, and ran to meet the horde head on. 

They barely got five steps before the horde met them head on. The tide of dark horned bodies engulfed them as they began to swing with wild abandon.

Beelzebub crashed down on the ground and tipped the brazier over, spilling its molten coals onto the ground and flooding the chamber with darkness as the flames died out.

It scuttled across the ground towards Hjallmar as he threw his spear.

Even in the fading light, he could see the spear scrape a white burning line across its left set of eyes as the spear deflected off its head.

The beast closed the distance, the ground shaking under him as its pincer like legs made the very cave shake with the weight of its footsteps.

Hjallmar drew his sword. Somewhere in the darkness, his berserkers were screaming. Laughing. Crying. Screaming. Dying. Hjallmar couldn’t tell.

He ran towards Beelzebub as it closed the gap and lowered its screaming pincered jaws towards him.

And as the darkness consumed his sight, and the screams of the horde ripping his blood-brothers apart and the scuttling fiend closing in on him filled his senses, Hjalmar raised his sword and screamed at the top of his lungs, so loud that surely all of Asgard, all of the nine realms, would hear his mighty war-cry.

“VALHALLA!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! The next chapter of No Words Are Needed will be up soon as well! This I promise!
> 
> The monk being good with the sword is inspired by Arn: Templar Knight, when the hero is trained in sword combat and wins a duel to avenge his family's honour wearing only his monk robes and his mentor's sword.
> 
> All love to my fans and its great to see you all again!
> 
> DC out

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a kudos, a review if you like and spread the word if you enjoyed it! If you liked it, head on over to my page defiantcandle17 and check out my other works as well! It would mean a lot if people left their feedback on my work as I hope to be a published writer one day!


End file.
